Spiritual Mentoring Culture of T

Spiritual Mentoring Culture of Than Le Gyi Asho Chin Baptist Church and Ignatius Spirituality

21 Dec 2018 Submitted for course The Art and Science of Mentoring and Spiritual Direction (shared with permission)

Spiritual Mentoring Culture of Than Le Gyi Asho Chin Baptist Church and Ignatius Spirituality

I would like to describe what our church’s teaching and disciple is based on ten Baptist church covenants that are as follow:

“1. We believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, and on the profession of our faith, having been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we do now, in the presence of God, angels, and this assembly, joyfully enter into covenant with one another, as one Body in Christ.

2. We will respect and obey our pastors who minister and discipline us according to the Word of God, and humble to each other as obedience to God

3. We will keep the Sabbath holy by not working, and worship God for two times. We will partake in the Holy Communion once a month as a covenant community.

4. We will live by the love of God, and bless each other without becoming conceited, provoking one another and envying one another. We will do good for each other as for ourselves.

5. If one of our Christian brothers commits sin, we will not ignore him, but rather correct and persuade him with gentleness.

6. If he doesn’t repent, we will give him warning of excommunication and persuade him again. If he denies and ignores us for several times, we will excommunicate and recognize him as a nonmember.

7. We will give offerings to support our pastors and minsters, and to bless the needy according to individual income.

8. We will shine our lights before others, so that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven.

9. We will make our children, relatives and friends disciples, and participate in mission to expand God’s Kingdom.

10. We will follow the teaching of the Word of God, live righteously, above reproach, holy, lovely, and exercise our spiritual gifts.”[2]

And there are another fives vows the Baptist church believers make when becoming an official member of a church which is as follow;

2. We will have read and study the Bible as a devotion in the morning and the night together as a family.

These covenants and vows reflect three empowerments in life: intimacy with God by regular devotion, prayer and reading the Bible, the ultimate identity in Christ by confessing a part of Nicene Creed and submission self into God’s mission.[4] However, the church doesn’t have perfect or effective model for spiritual mentoring. Usually, we learn spiritual formation things in Sunday school class during our childhood. And for children, we have Bible study camp occasionally at least twice a year. When we became young adult, we don’t have Sunday school class. Generally, for older generation like adult and married persons, only resource is pastoral sermons for their spiritual formation. For youth, there is a Bible camp once a year. For every Sunday, there is regular women fellowship. This is how our church runs to build spirituality of members. And there are two main resources beside the Bible for our spiritual formation: devotional series which are called Our Daily Bread and Night Devotion. Most family uses those two books for family devotion. Those books have Bible reading year plan, daily Bible verses with respective writers’ short testimonies. Normally, at family devotion the father will read one of the daily chapters of those books to the family members, and pray together. This is how our families do spiritual formation. In my personal opinion, I am not satisfied with our church spiritual formation and mentoring culture.

There may have several types of spiritual formation and mentoring in terms of relationship. In our Asho Chin Baptist Church context, we can only find four types of mentoring relationship: discipler, teacher, sponsor, and historical model. Discipler relationship gives basic discipleship functions in spiritual formation and mentoring. Teacher type transfers knowledge and motivation from pastors or teachers to the church members. Sponsor type encourages people with guidance and support to participate in ministry. And, historical model, in another word leaders, who leave spiritual values, principles and ministry to the congregation, then they follow their footsteps. These are our type of spiritual formation and mentoring in Asho Chin Baptist Church.[5]

Mostly our Asho Chin people are living in rural area and mixing with Burmese Buddhist majority next to each other. We are familiar with Buddhist culture and tradition. Even we know how to recite their worship and can guess how they do meditation. However, we feel that those kinds of things are satanic works. That concept was passed down by foreign missionaries in the past. They failed to contextualize and pay respect local culture and values. When we became Christians, we were to throw away all our practices and values. Thus we became different from our neighbors. In terms of contextualization, missionaries failed to do effective mission to Asho Chin people. The past missionaries ignore noble spiritual virtues such as ecological, communal, social spirit and veneration of life which were already existed as pointers to God’s revelation of His grace and mercy in the religions and cultures of our Asho Chin ethnic people. Actually, spiritual virtues can be found even in our Asho Chin animist culture and in Buddhist culture such as meditation and discipline in terms of responsive accountability. In the present age, our Church fails to reflect on the past legacy of foreign missionaries on spiritual virtues and formations.[6] Moreover, in the past missionaries were considered teachers, sellers and accusers by local. Missionaries would teach the local. They didn’t care whether they want to be taught or not. They tried to sell their ideas and values. They didn’t care whether the local want to buy or not. And they would like to accuse the local of sinners and wrong doers. These were the models of missionaries in the past which is still influencing our Asho Chin Baptist church.[7] And on the other hand, as a protestant church, we forget about spiritual formation and mentoring culture of early churches such as meditation, contemplative meditation and so on. To sum up, our Than Le Gyi Asho Chin Baptist church gets bad influence from foreign missionaries and stays away from spiritual formation and mentoring culture of early church in terms of Protestantism. And the last challenge is our church can only have a pastor: a lack of human resource in church ministry. As I look back my childhood in the church, I feel something was missing which is spiritual formation. In my opinion, to fill the missing gap, there is a possible mean is spiritual mentoring in terms of spiritual formation. Therefore, I would like to continue with Ignatius spirituality because I try Ignatius prayer and meditation that helps me to grow in love of Christ.

At first, I would like to introduce who was Ignatius. He was born in 1491 in the castle of his wealthy Loyola family in the country of Spain. His time had significant change in history such as Martin Luther’s reformation. There were colonization of Spain, abuses and corruption in the Roman Catholic Church showing the church needed reform. He joined the army in 1517 and got wounded in the leg. During his recovering time, he went back to Loyola, and had time to read a book was called “The Life of Christ.” Through his reading, he became a Christian, and happened to read deeper books in Christian spirituality such as “The Imitation of Christ” and many stories of St. Francis. In 1523, he did fully recovered from his injuries, then, he sold all his properties and left for Jerusalem as a pilgrimage. The ship he took was detained in a port town called Manresa for almost one year. In that port town, he learnt mystical experience of faith. Later, he got into serious study of Christian spirituality. Finally, he brought a reform for individual life being different from Luther’s institutional reformation. He said that the ultimate goals of a Christian is to have intimate relationship with God, to know identity in Christ’s grace and mercy and to know calling role and position in God’s mission. To discern all these three goals, he said that Christians need to do “Spiritual Exercise” which will help to develop inner spiritual growth that will change individuals, the church and the whole community. Reform must be occur within inside through the power of the Holy Spirit. After thirty years later, his reform became reality. On his death in 1556, he had founded thirty-three schools and his “Spiritual Exercise” became a classic model of spiritual reform. His model impacted on not only the spiritual insight and practice of the church but also a guide for spiritual mentors until today.[8]

And Ignatius spirituality is designed for everyday life to discern God’s presence and activeness in our lives, a mean to deeper prayer, good decisions with wisdom from above, and an active person for God’s mission to bless others.[9] One of his legacies is Ignatius contemplative prayer. Why I would like to choose this prayer method is relevant to our Asho Chin church context. Our church cannot have a pastor due to financial limitation. And Our Asho Chin people like story telling as we came from animist culture. Then, we are very familiar to Buddhist culture of meditation. Moreover, nowadays, the situation is changed. With the rise of Buddhist nationalism and globalization, people become more hostile to western values including Christianity. Last time, people thought westerners are superior to them. For minority tribes such as Asho Chin Christian, it was true in terms of development, education and health. It happened that whatever westerners taught or sold or accused, people were accepted. Nowadays, it is impossible to teach or sell or accuse the people in Myanmar. Last time, missionaries came and educated. Now, Buddhist monks are doing so. Last time, missionaries claimed that they brought better things or ideas, so that people should buy them. Now, people will say, “yours is good for you, ours is also good for us. No need to buy.” Last time, missionaries came and pointed out their weakness and faults. Now the people will say, “You don’t have the right to judge us.” I think that new three roles: learner, trader and story teller instead of teacher, sellers and accuser, are coming from humbleness and wise which is more suitable model to build Asho Chin Baptist Church.[10] With above these factors, in my opinion, Ignatius contemplative prayer will fit with our Asho Chin Baptist Christians in terms of a way to spiritual mentoring culture. In this short paper, I would like to emphasize more on Ignatius contemplative prayer than the whole package of spiritual mentoring.

Here I would like to give a glimpse of Ignatius contemplative prayer in another word imaginative prayer. From my experience, I believe that this mean of prayer can evoke our Asho Chin Baptist Church members to start bigger picture of spiritual mentoring among individuals. Ignatius realized that God can speak to us through our imagination as through our thoughts and memories. In the Ignatius tradition, praying with the imagination is called contemplation. In this spiritual exercise, contemplation is a very active way of praying that engages the mind and heart, and evokes thoughts and emotions. In other spiritual traditions, contemplation has quite a different meaning: it refers to a way of praying that frees the mind of all thoughts and images. Ignatius contemplative prayer is suited especially for the Gospels. For example, we can accompany Jesus through his life by imagining scenes from the Gospel stories. It will let the events of Jesus’ life become real to us. We are to visualize the event as if we were making a movie. We will pay attention to the details: sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and feelings of the event. We will immerse ourselves into the story. Contemplating a Gospel scene is not simply remembering it or going back in time. Through the act of contemplation, the Holy Spirit makes a mystery of Jesus’ life meaningful for us now. We can go deeper by using our imagination into the story so that God may communicate with us in a personal, and in evocative way. We might initially worry about going beyond the text of the Gospel. If we give our time of prayer to God, then begin by trusting that God is communicating with us. If we wonder if our imagination is going too far, then we can do some discernment with how we are praying. Where did our imagining lead us whether closer to God or farther away? Are our imagining bringing you consolation or desolation? These are the questions to ask ourselves in some point during contemplative prayer. In a spirit of generosity, we are to pray as we are able; we don’t need to force it. We are to relax and be assured that God will speak to us, whether through our memory, understanding, intellect, emotions, or imagination. This is Ignatius’ contemplative prayer.[11]

From last month, I started to use Ignatius contemplative prayer for my daily devotion. I became to want my fellow-workers in Christ feel and discern how this mean of prayer can renew our devotional life, and make different in building relationship with God. And I have concern for our Asho Chin Baptist Church because I grew up without proper spiritual formation and mentoring. I am sure, according to my own experience, the Ignatius contemplative prayer can bring us to whole new level or starting point of spiritual mentoring in our church culture. And I am dreaming that, by the grace of God, I have a close friend who is Jesuit Catholic deacon studying his MA in Philippine, to invite him to give lecture on Ignatius spirituality. I believe that this is not accidental. My prayer is that God may grant our Asho Chin Baptist Church will have strong spiritual mentoring culture in the future.

Anderson, Keith R. and Randy D. Reese, Spiritual Mentoring: A Guide for Seeking and Giving Direction. Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varity Press, 1999.

Church History Committee, Than Le Gyi Asho Chin Baptist Church, “the Church’s History,” in the Centenary Jubilee of Than Le Gyi Asho Chin Baptist Church. Padaung Township, Bago Division, 28 March 2012.

Larson, Donald N. “The Viable Missionary: Learner, trader, Story Teller,” in Missiology: An International Review, Vol. 4, No. 2 (April, 1978).

Ling, Samuel Ngun. Communicating Christ in Myanmar: Issues, Interactions and Perspectives (Revised Edition).Yangon, Myanmar: Judson Research Center, Myanmar Institute of Theology, 2014.

Publication Department, Myanmar Baptist Churches Union, “The Ten Covenants of Baptist Churches” in The New Hymn Book (Myanmar). Yangon: MBCU, 2000.

[1] Church History Committee, Than Le Gyi Asho Chin Baptist Church, “the Church’s History,” in the Centenary Jubilee of Than Le Gyi Asho Chin Baptist Church, (Padaung Township, Bago Division, 28 March 2012), 1-8

[2] Publication Department, Myanmar Baptist Churches Union, “The Ten Covenants of Baptist Churches” in The New Hymn Book (Myanmar), (Yangon: MBCU, 2000), I.

[3] Publication Department, MBCU, iii.

[4] Keith R. Anderson and Randy D. Reese, Spiritual Mentoring: A Guide for Seeking and Giving Direction, (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varity Press, 1999), 31.

[5] Ibid., 37.

[6] Samuel Ngun Ling, Communicating Christ in Myanmar: Issues, Interactions and Perspectives (Revised Edition), (Yangon, Myanmar: Judson Research Center, Myanmar Institute of Theology, 2014), 64-69.

[7] Donald N. Larson, The Viable Missionary: Learner, trader, Story Teller, in Missiology: An International Review, Vol. 4, No. 2 (April, 1978), 155-157.

[8]Keith R. Anderson and Randy D. Reese, Spiritual Mentoring: A Guide for Seeking and Giving Direction, (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varity Press, 1999), 130-131.

[9] IgnatiusSpirituality.com, What is Ignatius Spirituality? https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/what-is-ignatian-spirituality#beyond-the-basics (Accessed on 18 Dec 2018).

[10] Donald N. Larson, The Viable Missionary: Learner, trader, Story Teller, in Missiology: An International Review, Vol. 4, No. 2 (April, 1978), 158-161.

[11]Kevin O’Brien, “Ignatian Contemplation: Imaginative Prayer,” in IgnatianSpiritualty.com, https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-spiritual-exercises/ignatian-contemplation-imaginative-prayer (Accessed om 17 Dec 2018)